


To do it for love

by toliveathousandlives (Froschkoenig)



Category: Euphoria (TV 2019)
Genre: Drug Use, F/F, Mental Health Issues, References to Depression, Suicidal Ideation, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:35:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28293201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Froschkoenig/pseuds/toliveathousandlives
Summary: Set after the season 1 finale, after Jules left. It was so hard for Rue to stay sober when Jules wasn't there anymore..
Relationships: Rue Bennett & Jules Vaughn, Rue Bennett/Jules Vaughn
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	To do it for love

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Christmas, A. Hope this will motivate you to finally watch Euphoria :D

Rue looked down into the palm of her hand. There, nestled between two pills of MDMA lay a single tiny pill of fentanyl. They looked so innocent. And just by looking at them Rue could imagine what it would feel like if she'd take them, right then and there. How easy it would be. How good it would feel. How peaceful. How she wouldn't have to fight herself anymore, even just for a few hours. The world would stop spinning. Maybe she could go out and live for a while, hang out with friends, chill, make out with someone. Talk to her mom. Hug Gia. Be a normal teenager for once.  
She'd be so happy.

But she'd promised Jules that she wouldn't take drugs anymore. She'd promised.

Just – it was hard to keep promises to Jules when she wasn't there. It was so hard. Jules would be so mad. But Jules wasn't here now, was she? She'd run off to the city to be with her... whatever. Girlfriend? Lover?  
Rue shuddered from just thinking about Jules being with someone else.

But then – it had been her own fault, hadn't it? Rue herself had been the one proposing the idea of running away. She'd been the one pushing Jules to go. What did she expect? Jules had never been one to turn down an adventure. And running away, even just for a few weeks – that was exactly what Jules needed right now. To spend time away from this godforsaken place.  
Realistically – and that was what Rue was, most of the time, a realist – there had never been another option. They were 17. Their relationship – if you could call it that – would have never survived for long. Jules was finding herself, living a normal teenager life. Partying, falling in love, hanging out with friends, having fun.

That was why Rue had fallen for her in the first place. Jules didn't give a fuck. She lived her life truthfully and without regrets. She did what she wanted.

*

Rue leaned back against the headboard of her bed. She could hear Gia and mom in the other room. And still she could never go out there and join them. Be a part of their circle. She'd always been an outsider, even when her dad was still alive. Her family had tried so hard to include her. It had never worked, but deep down she had still felt loved by them.

And Rue loved them back, she did. She loved her mom, she loved Gia and Jules. Maybe she'd even loved Lexi, a long time ago. She loved people. But it was hard for her. It didn't come naturally to her to love people. She had to work for it. She had to make herself vulnerable. It essentially went against all of her instincts to put herself out there like this. That's why she avoided becoming close to other people so much. Why she kept away from Lexi and pushed Gia and mom away, again and again. Intimacy was hard, and maintaining friendships and relationships was even harder.

But then she met Jules, and Jules was different. Rue fell for her almost instantly. Jules was glamorous and wonderful and snarky and had the most beautiful smile Rue'd ever seen. And Jules liked her back, which was more than most of her fellow humans ever did.  
Jules had always been easy for Rue. Easy to accept, easy to understand, easy to love. Maybe that had been the problem all along. Because Rue had never been easy. Rue had been complicated her whole life. But Jules had liked her right away, and foolish as she was, Rue had found comfort in that. Comfort in the fact that other people, people who weren't related to her, could love her. Could care for her.

Rue had trusted Jules right away, because she knew Jules would never hurt her. Except she had, hadn't she? Rue wasn't sure anymore what exactly had happened. What had happened first, her leaving Jules or Jules leaving her? It was all blurred together in her head. Maybe loving Jules wasn't so easy after all, maybe Rue had just blended out the complicated and toxic things they had done to each other.

*

Rue knew it wasn't normal or even appropriate to build your whole existence around someone else. To anchor your sanity to said someone's love. To survive and in her case, stay sober, just for the approval of another person. It wasn't healthy.

Rue knew that, and still. Still she'd gone all in. Falling so very hard for Jules and pushing all that responsibility on her. No wonder Jules had snapped and gone away.  
No wonder she'd ended up alone again.

The problem was this though: Rue knew all that. With all that shit going on in her head and all those drugs running through her system those last few years, she wasn't stupid. She realized how weird she'd been. How obsessive. She just couldn't change it. No matter how hard she tried, how much she begged god or her mom or her therapist or her drugs, she couldn't change.

She was locked in this prison of addiction and mostly untreated mental illness. And when she could see her future clearly, which wasn't all that often these days, there weren't many options to choose from. Fall back into drugs, go to rehab a few more times. Disappoint her mom and Gia. Probably an overdose or two from which they'd get her back. And then one from which they couldn't. Early, tragic death not even worth a mention in the local news.  
People weren't interested in drug addicts, they'd probably think she'd deserved it.

Which, you know, she wasn't sure she'd disagree. Not in the sense that she'd been a bad person and stupid enough to use drugs. But in the sense that she did deserve a bit of peace and quiet. And on very dark days, the ones when she pissed herself because she was so depressed she couldn't manage to get out of bed, on those days she knew deep down that the only way to get peace and quiet was death. That feeling usually lasted only for a few hours or days. She couldn't do that to Gia and her mom. They'd been through enough.  
But it did feel nice to wonder and to long for it, sometimes.

Rue had worked hard to be normal. She'd worked so hard and it hadn't changed a thing. So she turned to drugs, which was way easier than pretending. Because the drugs were real and they made her numb and content and calm. Most people didn't even notice, because she'd act so normal under the influence. Being high as a kite meant being more normal than being sober. Which would be funny if it weren't so fucking tragic.

*

Rue didn't want to fuck Jules. Well, she did. But that wasn't what she hoping for in those first few weeks. What Rue wanted was a kiss. She was 17, she still kind of believed in fairytales or those romanticized chick-flicks. She wanted that one kiss that changed everything. Rocked her soul and everything, the whole world, tilted to the side. Just a few degrees, just for a few seconds. Everything would shift. She would see herself and other people and the world in a new light. She expected that. She wanted that. She wanted something special, something world-altering. But alas, that never came. When she kissed Jules it was wonderful and beautiful and almost all she ever hoped it to be. But it didn't change her. It made her happy, yeah, and she did want to kiss Jules again and again. But it didn't make her whole. It didn't change the way she overthought everything about it. How she thought about the kiss for days afterwards and analyzed every single detail and what she had done wrong and what she could have done better. Rationalized all the reasons why Jules could hate and/or leave her now. It didn't change that. It didn't change her.  
Jules wasn't her savoir. And that was harder to swallow than any pill in the world.

But that hadn't been the first time Rue had waited for someone to save her. She'd always hoped for something or someone to cure her and make her whole. Let her live that life she'd always wanted to live. But nobody came. No prince or princess on a white horse came. Her mom couldn't. Her dad definitely couldn't anymore. He tried, they both did. But they never understood her, didn't get why she had to count the tiles of the bathroom four times before they left the house. Or why she just couldn't be like the other kids. Why she couldn't just be happy. And then when her dad had gotten sick they didn't have time or energy to figure her out anymore. They tried and then they didn't. Now dad was gone and her mom was working all the time. And Gia was still a kid.

Jules had tried a little bit. She was a teenager herself, she had her own life, her own problems. Her mom was a whole other chapter. But still she'd been naive enough to try to fix Rue. But in the end, Jules hadn't been enough to drown out the voices and pain in her head. Rue knew deep down that only she herself could take them on. Only she herself could fight for herself and learn to accept and live with it. Mental illness wasn't something you could heal like that. Rue couldn't be fixed, because she wasn't broken, that's what her therapists used to say. Bullshit if you asked her. Still, she had to learn how to treat it and live with it. Cope. Ideally with professional help, but Rue had long ago given up on that. That's why she'd started to self-medicate.

So Rue definitely couldn't fix herself. The drugs didn't fix her, either. They made her numb though, and that was enough most of the time. She didn't want to take them, really. She didn't take them for the rush or the high, although that was a nice side-effect. She took them for the silence. It was so much quieter, so much more calm and content. Maybe even happy, maybe almost happy.

*

And in the end it was worth it. She knew addiction kills you. Maybe one day, after been kicked out by her mom, estranged from her friends (although - which friends?) and family, she'd regret it. But for now? It was so worth it. The calm and quiet, the feeling when she took the right dose at the exact right moment. That was it. That was peace for her. That was what other people experienced on a normal day-to-day basis. But it took so much for her to reach that feeling. But when it was there, it was unbelievable. She wanted to keep it, stay high forever. That's why she kept on lying and stealing and doing things she wouldn't normally do.  
Well, she didn't know what she'd normally do. There was no normal for her. This had been her whole life. Drugs had always been part of her life. Maybe they'd always be part of her life, until she wasn't anymore.

She just hoped she wouldn't hurt other people too much in the process. Wouldn't make her mom cry. Wouldn't traumatize her little sister even more.

*

When Rue was four years old, she wanted nothing more than to be normal. Life had been hard and confusing for most of her life already, and by the time Gia was born Rue couldn't even cope with daily routines anymore. Preschool had been hell and her parents were this close to giving up on her. Or that's what it felt like at least.

Rue had been unsure about having a sibling at first. She'd been an only child for her entire life so far and she'd liked the predictability of that. Babies and toddlers were loud and messy. On the other hand – maybe her parents would be happier if they had someone else to care for.  
When Gia came home from hospital with mom, Rue would spend her days looking at her baby sister and wondering if Gia would be like her. If Gia would understand what was going on in Rue's head. As if her own life would be better if Gia suffered too.  
It turned out that Gia wasn't though. Gia was neuro-typical and even though she tried her hardest to understand Rue, she never could.  
Rue felt cheated at that time. Now she had this annoying little sibling and still she'd be alone. It wasn't fair. To be honest though, Rue had already accepted that life wouldn't be fair for her. Why else should she be forced to go through horrible and boring and scary and exhausting testing for her mental health if not for the universe hating her specifically?

When Rue was diagnosed, her world ended in a few ways. For one, her parents had been so desperate to act like everything (she) was normal that it was really hard for them to adapt to this new, strange and high-maintenance kid she'd honestly always been. The second thing that ended was her believe that she'd ever be like the other kids. That one day she wouldn't have to stop before going to kindergarten to count all the bricks that lined the sidewalk. That she wouldn't have panic attacks anymore or disassociate on a daily basis.  
That day she had to give up on a lot of things, one of them being her future, kind of.  
The doctor who over diagnosed her when she was barely out of toddlerhood prescribed her some anti-depressants. Which seemed to do the trick. Her parents seemed content, they were busy with baby Gia and bills and work and themselves after all. Rue didn't remember much about that time. She'd been numb and controlled and almost normal. She kind of played with Lexi a lot, which she didn't recall either, and life went on.

*

When Rue was 11, she'd been given Valium for the first time. When she was 13, she tried her dad's Oxycotin. That had been the beginning of the end, at least that's how her mom would describe it.  
But for her those were the only times her demons were quiet and she could breathe. When she took drugs, the world slowed down. Her thoughts became quieter and everything was soft and tinted a happy, content yellow. The wind and her mom's voice became soothing. She could block out her classmates and her teachers. Living became easy for the first time in forever.

*

When Rue came home from rehab, nothing had changed, really. She'd been this close to death. Her mom would cry and scream at her. This was her second chance or whatever. And of course, she was thankful for surving. Kind of. In a very abstract way. And she did regret Gia finding her after she'd ODed.  
So afterwards, she tried. A little bit at least. But it's hard to hold on to life and sanity and sobriety for other people. Rue didn't have a lot of people she loved in her life. She loved her mom and her sister, and she loved Jules and even Fez somehow. But they weren't enough motivation to stay sober, even if she'd promised Jules. She'd tried staying sober for love, but it hadn't been enough.

And Jules, sweet, wonderful, 17yo Jules, had known. Looking back, Jules had been the only one to notice that she couldn't save her. Mom, Gia, Fez, hell even Lexi had been enabling her, always thinking that if they'd just loved her hard enough that would keep her alive.  
Jules had realized that she couldn't. She couldn't keep Rue alive and if she tried, she'd lose herself. It was a relationship so toxic that Jules had had to leave the city to flee it. Jules had kept herself safe, and in a way Rue was thankful for that. Because it wasn't worth it. Because Jules needed to be full and happy and healthy and safe, and if that meant not hanging out with Rue anymore, then be it. If it meant she'd be with Nate or that other girl, fine. Rue had ruined enough lives and she'd never forgive herself if she'd dragged Jules down with her. Despite all, she wanted Jules to be happy.

*

Letting Jules go was the hardest thing Rue had ever done. But at the same time it was so easy. It was so easy Rue could hardly believe it. Easier than breathing sometimes. Because deep down Rue had always known that Jules wouldn't be hers forever. Maybe Jules had never been hers to begin with. Jules couldn't be contained, because she was overflowing with life and love for so many things and people. She could not be put in a box and belong to someone. She could not belong to anyone. Jules was free and so big and so much that one single person could never be enough to hold her. She'd known that all along.  
Jules could never belong to Rue, as flawed as she was.

And she was flawed, Rue knew. And of course she knew that Jules wasn't perfect either, that her life hadn't been perfect at all, that she had more shit and trauma going on than most. Rationally, Rue knew that. But in her broken world, in a world full of hurting and voices and ticks and cravings and not being able to cope with so many things... in her tiny little world, Jules had been her haven. She'd been easy, she'd been so easy.

*

Jules had been hers for a while. And she'd made her happy. Sometimes Rue thought Jules was the only thing she needed. She didn't need air or food, maybe not even drugs anymore. For a while there, Jules had been enough. She'd been all Rue needed.

In the end it hadn't been enough to keep her sober and safe and sane. Rue had lost herself years ago, maybe she'd never had herself to begin with. Maybe she'd never been herself, never knew who she was. But if you can't accept and love yourself, someone else's love won't heal you. Jules's love had been enough for a while, but she couldn't keep out Rue's demons forever.

Rue couldn't keep living like that. She couldn't quit drugs for someone else, not for real, because people leave you and then she'd be alone all over again. Like her dad. It was only a matter of time until her mom and Gia would leave her too. When she became too much of a burden for them. When their love for her wouldn't be enough to make up for the heartache and pain she caused them.

*

When she'd gotten sober for Jules, she'd really thought this could be it, somehow. Because it had seemed so easy, to give up things to make Jules happy. She'd give up everything. She'd quit drugs for goodness sake. She'd never done that before. Didn't even know she could. She'd do everything for Jules and she knew that this wasn't healthy. That it wasn't what it was supposed to be like.

And she knew even clearer that this wasn't true at all. She didn't get sober to make Jules happy, it was to make her stay. It was selfish. When Jules was there, the voices were almost silent. The itching of her skin wasn't as overwhelming. The constant urge to move and count was dampened. It had been enough, for a while.

Jules had left though, so her new drug, her calming agent, was gone. So this was on her again. She was responsible for herself. She'd always been responsible for herself, since she was like, 5 years old. Nobody understood her, nobody could help her. They overdiagnosed her and pumped her full of drugs and in a way, that had been an out for her. She tried to be who they thought she should be, but when dad got sick it had been too much. She couldn't act anymore. And the drugs, the real ones, had been right there. She'd only helped herself. And it hadn't been healthy. It hadn't been a good method of coping, but it had been the only way to stay alive. And at that moment that was the most important thing. To stay alive. She couldn't leave her mom. She had to live on, care for her dad until he died, comfort her mom, look after Gia. She had to stay alive.

But now, years later, she didn't know what to do with this life someone or something else had forced onto her. Dad was gone and her mom was busy making a living, and Gia was growing up. What was she supposed to do with her life? She'd never expected to live past 18, at times she hadn't even thought that she could. Survive that long, that is. But she did. And now she didn't know what to do. Go to college? Get married? Work? Have kids, so her mom could have some grandkids? That wasn't going to happen.  
But what was going to happen? She couldn't just keep living, could she? She wanted to, sometimes. See Gia grow up, become the person she was supposed to be. She could picture the future sometimes. Gia getting married and her telling embarrassing childhood stories about her at the reception. Holding potential little nieces or nephews. Meeting Gia for coffee in her lunch break as a world class attorney. The white picket fence life her little sister always dreamed of.  
Just seeing Gia living and being happy. Maybe her mom finally meeting a decent guy (who could never replace dad, but maybe make her a little happier?).  
But all her reasons to live were still other people. Because she didn't care. She didn't enjoy living. It was mostly pain for her, even with drug-induced numbness most of the time.

*

Rue looked down into her palm. Looked really hard at those three tiny pills, trying to decipher the meaning of the world beneath them. Trying to decide on something that wasn't her decision after all. This decision had been made for her a lifetime ago and she had to live with what was left.

Rue looked down into her hand and somehow, the thought of not having a choice was soothing to her. Staying sober was so hard, and deep down she'd always known that she would disappoint those expectations that others put onto her. She almost smiled. Jules was gone. She'd stayed sober for her, but that hadn't been enough. Gia and mom were laughing at some sitcom in the other room, but they could have been a million miles away too. Her dad was gone and Fez didn't want anything to do with her which was – good for him, really.  
And Jules was gone.

Rue closed her eyes and for a moment she saw all the possibilities before her. Her future unfolded in front of her, jobs and lovers and lives she'd never have. So much to do, so much to see. So much to feel. Rue gripped the pills harder in her hand for a moment, wavering. Tears pooled behind her eyelids, her jaw cramping together.  
But the tears never left her eyes, and after a few seconds her muscles relaxed as the moment was gone. Her shoulders dropped and slowly, almost carefully, she lifted her hand. Without so much as a second thought, she swallowed all three pills in one go.  
She exhaled. That had been so much easier than she'd thought. Like coming back home to herself. Like looking in the mirror and finally admitting to yourself that you couldn't and would never change.

After all, love had never been enough to keep her sober. And this – the drugs – were the next best thing after Jules.


End file.
